New 2017 Ford Super Duty is Too Tough for Ford’s Old Testing Equipment

How tough is the new 2017 Ford Super Duty? According to Ford, so tough that it had to build a completely new dynamometer sled to simulate traveling up steep mountain grades when testing on the flat roads of the automaker’s Arizona Proving Grounds.

Normally, a dynamometer is hooked up to the back of a truck to test its capability. However, the new 2017 Ford Super Duty was so powerful that the old dyno simply didn’t challenge it, leading Ford to build a completely new one and properly test its mountain-climbing limits.

By using a brake limiter, which essentially mimics the effects of gravity while driving up an incline, the dyno is able to simulate steep grades. The old one was capable of a maximum drawbar pull of 2,000 pounds and to simulate a 7% grade; by comparison, the new one is capable of a drawbar pull of over 5,600 pounds and to simulate up to a 30% grade.

“In more than 25 years of doing this work, we used the same dyno, which did the job, but the new truck is so powerful we needed new equipment to test out its capability,” explained Jim Sumner, Ford product development engineer. “The fact that even under full load, Super Duty didn’t have any trouble at all is a testament to just how capable this new truck is.”

We look forward to challenging the 2017 Ford Super Duty with real-world tests at Two Rivers Ford!